About me

My name is Noelle. After years in the financial wilderness of corporate finance, fund management and stock market analysis, the festive and entrepreneurial spirit took over, and in 2000 I set up fiestafacil.com, the first online store for party accessories in Spain. Bear in mind that this was back in the dinosaur days of online services, and I wasn’t alone in not knowing much about connectivity.

It was fun, it was stressful, and, man, I learned a lot, about people, parties, purchasing power and payment platforms, to pick just one letter of the alphabet. I was lucky to work with a great team, and to have incredible support from home. When people ask me if I would do it again, my answer is always “Yes!”, although hopefully making different mistakes the second time around.

Of course it wasn’t all festivity and merriment, although there was a lot of that. There were really difficult times, too. We grew too fast, and the crisis hit us hard. My good friend and right-hand person for 10 years lost her battle with cancer. I won mine.

At the end of 2013 I sold the business, and embarked on the third phase of my professional life. I now spend my time writing, reading, writing, studying, reading, writing and researching cryptocurrencies, blockchain and the potential impact on the global economy. Sigh, so much to learn. I produce the CoinDesk newsletters (if you don’t already subscribe, you really should, and can do so here), and I occasionally give classes and talks on this complicated but gripping subject.

[Some have complained that there isn’t enough biographical background here. To be honest, I’ve never been very interested in where I’m from, more in where I’m going. But, as I’m getting older, I’m realizing the value of history, and I love reading other peoples’, so here you go: I was born in Lusaka, Zambia, a very long time ago. We moved to London when I was 10, then the US, then Chile, and then I left there to study at Brown Univeristy in Rhode Island, getting a degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics. I love maths, and numbers, and logic. After a year at the London School of Economics I worked in London, then Toronto, then London again, before moving to Madrid, Spain, in 1992. I was convinced that I would never settle down anywhere, and that I would never get married (life was too short for that, too much to do!), but I never expected to fall in love with Madrid and to fall in love with someone as inescapably wonderful as Jacobo. Together we have produced two remarkably original individuals. Miguel is a writer/theatre director, and his muse has taken him to the UK. Ana is showing signs of becoming a programming whizz. From where I’m sitting, the future looks pretty darn interesting.]